


Brand New Normal

by HYPERFocused



Category: Smallville
Genre: Angst, Coda, Episode Tag, Ficlet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 13:12:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2151972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HYPERFocused/pseuds/HYPERFocused
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's what he's always wanted, and he couldn't be more miserable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brand New Normal

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Written 9/30/2005. Spoilers for Arrival. Just a little coda, 500 words exactly. Written for the Time challenge (though for which comm, I've now forgotten. Possibly SV flashfiction)

His second try at normal, and Clark wishes he could turn back time. Spin himself out of his troubles. Watch his mother’s wounds uncut themselves, Lana’s leg unbreak, Chloe’s frostbite warm. See the house he grew up in patch itself back up instantaneously. Swallow back the years of lies to Lex, and hope that Lex will do the same. Stranger things have happened.

But he can’t do that. He can’t do anything at all.

He brings Lana irises, her favorite flower, but he can’t think of a bloom less suited to her personality. Anyway, purple has never been meant for her. She’s petal pink, or daisy white. Now that she’s been exposed to aliens more threatening than he has ever been. Clark is a safer choice than she knows.

Already there are so many things he hates about being human, or the closest he can get to it. Splinters from the wood he’s using to rebuild the walls. The strain in his shoulders as he holds up the beams. Stinging sweat tricking into his eyes. The few days he’d lost his powers freshman year have nothing on the exhaustion he’s feeling now. He could sleep for a week if he still had a bed.

Instead, he pushes himself to do more than a normal kid would. Everything is in ruins, and this time he can’t fix it alone.

No, Clark can’t turn back time. And he doesn’t know how he’ll make it through the next ten minutes, much less the rest of his so called normal life.

It’s ironic. Chloe knows the truth, and for about five seconds it was an unexpected relief. She’d been so excited to hear it all, and even happier to let him know she knew. Not anymore. Any dream he’d had of the joy she’d have had in sharing it with him is gone, along with his powers. How is he going to tell her he’s nobody special again?

It’s different with Lex. Lex has always known, at least in part, but Clark has never admitted it. Even now, when the truth is as evident as the gaping wound the ship carved into the ground, and as clear as the crystals in his new Fortress of Solitude.

He doesn’t know why – maybe he listens to closely to his father – but a Lex with more proof than suspicions scares Clark more than he can say. Even with her wall of weird, and her investigations, Chloe would never mean him harm. Lex, he’s not so sure.

Once upon a time he’d ask Lex if they could stay at the mansion. Once upon a time, he wouldn’t have had to. The offer would have come as soon as his folks signed the release from the hospital, all bills paid, signed AJL.

There is no call, this time. Once, Lex drove him off a bridge and everything changed from there. Now Clark wonders if he’s burned theirs beyond repair.

It’s a brand new normal, and already it’s getting old.  



End file.
